English National Opera announces autumn/ winter 2011 and 2012 season - tickets available now
Posted: 12 years agoThe English National Opera company (ENO), based at the London Coliseum near Covent Garden, has announced its autumn/winter season of performances.
A mixture of contemporary and traditional, comedy and tragedy, the new season includes staging of classic works like Tosca and The Marriage of Figaro alongside once controversial operas such as The Passenger and The Death of Klinghoffer.
Ticket prices start at £12-£18 for balcony seats, rising to £92-£99 for the best stalls tickets.
Following its 2010 ENO debut, Jonathan Miller's affectionately comic take on Donizetti's bitter-sweet rural romance returns with a fresh cast. Young soprano Lucy Crowe is Adina, while fast-rising tenor Ben Johnson and baritone Benedict Nelson play the nerdy mechanic and the gum-chewing GI vying for her affections. From 15th September to 8th October 2011.
An encounter between a former Auschwitz guard and a former prisoner plunges both back into the horrors of the Holocaust, pitting perpetrator against victim in a moral battle between guilt and denial, retribution and absolution. Based upon a semi-autobiographical novel by Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz, Polish composer Mieczysław Weinberg's 1968 opera was hailed as 'a work that demands and deserves to be seen'. From 19th September to 25th October 2011.
Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro whisks us through 'one crazy day' as Figaro, the Count's valet, attempts to wed his beloved Susanna, the Countess's maid, before their philandering master can bed her first. Leading stage and screen actress Fiona Shaw plots a path through The Marriage of Figaro's moral maze of disguises, deceptions, sexual intrigue, mutual suspicion and mistaken identity. From 5th October to Thursday 10th November 2011.
A celebration of brotherly rather than romantic love, Castor and Pollux is a work of ethereal beauty, rich in affecting airs, elegant dances and powerful choruses, with a plot that sweeps spectacularly from ancient Sparta down to the gates of Hell and up to the starry vault of Heaven. Allan Clayton and Roderick Williams star as the twins so devoted that each is willing to die in place of the other. From 24th October to 1st December 2011.
Intimate, poignant depiction of passion and unrequited love, Tchaikovsky's lyrical masterpiece returns with a new staging that reunites director Deborah Warner and Music Director Edward Gardner. Alongside soprano Amanda Echalaz as the impressionable young country-girl Tatyana, tenor Toby Spence plays the tragically self-dramatising poet Lensky. From 12th November to 3rd December 2011.
Puccini's Tosca is a tense political and sexual thriller set in Rome at the time of Napoleon's invasion of Italy. Directed by celebrated American soprano Catherine Malfitano, this production is conducted by Stephen Lord, following his acclaimed ENO performances in revivals of Jonathan Miller's Rigoletto and La Bohème. Claire Rutter assumes the role of the temperamental diva Tosca, alongside Anthony Michaels-Moore as the sadistic police chief Scarpia. From 26th November 2011 to 29th January 2012.
Richard Strauss' Viennese comedy returns to the London Coliseum in David McVicar's staging, first seen in 2008. Sarah Connolly returns as the ardent young 'Knight of the Rose', with Sophie Bevan as the innocent Sophie. Amanda Roocroft makes her role debut as the Marschallin, the worldly 'older woman' who graciously cedes her teenage lover to a younger rival. From 28th January to 27th February 2012.
Hopelessly besotted with a flighty prima donna, the poet Hoffmann drunkenly recalls the three loves of his life in Offenbach's operatic swansong, which boasts such hit numbers as the clockwork-driven 'Doll's Song' and the seductively swooning 'Barcarolle'. Blurring dreams and reality, The Tales of Hoffmann is perfectly suited to the imagination of director Richard Jones, back at ENO after his Olivier Award-nominated Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci in 2008. From 10th February to 10th March 2012.
The ENO presents the London stage premiere of John Adam's controversial 'docu-opera' about the killing of a Jewish-American tourist during the hijacking of a Mediterranean cruise liner by Palestinian militants. Tom Morris, co-director of the National Theatre's War Horse, makes his opera directing debut, while Baldur Brönnimann applies his contemporary expertise to what many regard as Adams's finest opera. From 25th February to 9th March 2012.